Choose your crossing
Pick a mood for the site. The work stays the same; the lantern changes colour.
The Story
My job is not to replace English words with French ones. My job is to make sure the French version still reads like your book.
Your novel is not just a sequence of sentences waiting to be converted. It has rhythm. It has texture. It has dialogue that should not suddenly sound like a polite robot.
It may have magic systems, haunted cities, starships, unreliable narrators, morally damaged heroes, or just very sharp people making terrible decisions.
The Passage into French
Some things cross easily. Others need to be rebuilt, reshaped, or quietly saved from disaster.
English and French do not breathe the same way. They do not handle rhythm, repetition, dialogue, humour, exposition, emotional restraint, or stylistic pressure in quite the same manner.
A sentence can be technically correct and still sound painfully translated. A translation can be accurate and still flatten the voice, drain the atmosphere, stiffen the dialogue, or turn worldbuilding into furniture assembly instructions.
French is not hostile. Just demanding.
I translate fiction from English into French with particular attention to voice, atmosphere, dialogue, register, style, worldbuilding, tension, and narrative flow.
The Tools
Some services carry the book across.
Others reveal where the crossing went wrong.
For authors preparing a French edition of their novel.
I translate fiction from English into French with a literary approach: preserving voice, rhythm, atmosphere, dialogue, register, tone, and genre texture.
Especially suited to fantasy, speculative fiction, dark fiction, atmospheric fiction, literary-leaning fiction, and voice-driven novels.
Quoted separately.
For authors who already have a French translation but do not read French.
I assess whether the French manuscript reads naturally as publishable fiction: flow, style, dialogue, rhythm, visible anglicisms, awkward phrasing, consistency, and overall readability.
Assessment report only. No line-by-line corrections. No accuracy check against the English.
From €0.02 per French word.
For authors who want to know whether their French translation is both readable and faithful to the English.
I compare the French with the English source and identify mistranslations, omissions, additions, shifts in tone, weakened voice, flattened dialogue, terminology issues, and damaged worldbuilding.
Comparative report. No full revision unless quoted separately.
From €0.04 per English source word.
A review tells you what the translation needs. A revision fixes it. If you want me to correct the French manuscript directly, that is a separate service and must be quoted separately.
If the translation is mostly sound, revision may be possible. If the translation is beyond repair, I will say so. There is no glory in repainting the shutters of a burning house.
The Eye
FrenchWillRead is not about putting a translator’s face at the center of the work. The book gets that privilege.
What matters here is the eye behind the translation: the one checking whether a joke survives, whether a name carries meaning, whether a line of dialogue still sounds human in French, and whether your worldbuilding arrives with its bones intact.
Correct French is the floor. The goal is fiction that French readers can enter.
Voice. Rhythm. Atmosphere. Dialogue. Register. Genre texture. Meaningful names. Recurring terms. Worldbuilding. The small things that quietly break a book when nobody checks them.
I don’t flatten style into polite French. I don’t translate names “because why not.” I don’t treat fantasy, science fiction, dark fiction, thriller, and literary fiction as the same soup in different bowls.
Most of my commissioned work is covered by confidentiality agreements, so I do not display client titles, excerpts, manuscripts, or private project material here.
I do not use client work as public bait. Your book stays protected before, during, and after the work.
A synopsis. A glossary if you have one. Notes on invented terms. Names that carry meaning. Anything that comes from a real language, folklore, myth, religion, family history, or your own private naming system.
And if something foreshadows book two, three, or the emotional collapse of a dynasty, please mention it before I make a perfectly reasonable decision that turns out to be cursed.
The Notes
A place for the small translation questions that can shape a French edition before the first chapter even crosses the border.
These notes are written for authors considering, preparing, or quietly circling an English-to-French translation. No panic required. Just a closer look at the choices that help a book arrive whole.
Names, clues, jokes, world-building, and the occasional name that knows too much. A short guide to what can stay, what may need adapting, and what deserves a note before translation begins.
A translation can be accurate and still sound flat, stiff, too clean, too formal, or quietly dead inside. This note looks at what makes fiction feel alive in French.
A practical checklist for authors: glossary, meaningful names, invented terms, series notes, foreshadowing, and other things your translator should know before accidentally stepping on a prophecy.
Or, less dramatically, an email.
If you are planning a French edition, already have a French translation you cannot evaluate, or want to know what your manuscript would need before entering the French market, get in touch.
Tell me what you are working on, the genre, word count, current stage, timeline, and what kind of help you need.